“This is tired nonsense we’ve been hearing for years, trotted out anew as a flimsy bright and shiny object to distract attention from the very real compromising of global networks and information that has been exposed in recent weeks. Misdirecting and slandering Huawei may feel okay because the company is Chinese-based – no harm, no foul, right? Wrong.

Huawei is a world-proven multinational across 150 global markets that supports scores and scores of American livelihoods, and thousands more, indirectly, through $6 billion a year in procurements from American suppliers. Someone says they got some proof of some sort of threat? Okay. Then put up. Or shut up. Lacking proof in terms of the former, which seems clearly the case, this is politically-inspired and racist corporate defamation, nothing more.”

And now we have, courtesy of Joye as well, with the input of veteran Defence writer John Kerin, an explicit denial by China’s ambassador to Australia, Chen Yuming, about the situation. We recommend you click here to read the whole article, but here’s the key paragraph:

“Facts speak louder than words. There may be some people doing things the article referred to, but it is not Huawei or China for sure,” Ambassador Chen said. “China strongly condemns any defamation out of political motives of a Chinese company that enjoys high reputation in Australia and around the world.”

If someone has some direct evidence that Huawei has been spying for the Chinese Government, then let them come forward with that evidence. So far all we have is hearsay and innuendo. And that is not enough, as Huawei and China’s Ambassador to Australia have clearly stated, when we’re talking about billion dollar contracts and the reputation of one of the world’s largest technology vendors. As Huawei has said, on this issue, “put up, or shut up”.

I’m sure you’ve heard what happens to those that speak out against the Government/Communist Party in China. It’s no surprise that there are virtually no leaks from within the Great Firewall.

Not that I support baseless accusations. Personally I think that it is more likely an NSA supplied backdoor or two exists in Cisco IOS than a Chinese Government only access method in any Huawei fixed line or mobile infrastructure

The issue that occurs here is that if there is evidence then it is unlikely that the intelligence agencies concerned will reveal it because it will cast insights on how it was gathered which may compromise future operations. If there is not evidence then noone is going to speak up. Either way I don’t think evidence will be forthcoming.

So much concern about China spying but it was happening all along. Why the specific concern about Huawei? It is very curious… I guess it’s much harder to control technology from a Chinese company than an American one if your goal is to gather even more obscene amounts of data and store it in zettabyte sized boxes. If Australia was really sincere about our security we’d boycott ALL American and Chinese hardware and build it ourselves. We cant do it? Makes sense, it’s that sort of apathy that allows us to be spied on by our so called friends to begin with.

“If Australia was really sincere about our security we’d boycott ALL American and Chinese hardware and build it ourselves.”

Swap “Australia” in that sentence for “Israel”, and American and Chinese for Russian and (well, pretty much any/everyone), then post it about 35 years ago in some letters-to-the-editor section of a daily rag over there, and pretty much that is what started the Israeli tech boom.

In no way at all did this article say that the evidence doesn’t exist, nor did it suggest it doesn’t. What it did say is “So far all we have is hearsay and innuendo”, or in simple terms, people have got to stop creating FUD and actually have something to back up these claims, ie. put up or shut up.

I can offer an explanation for why australian officials don’t care about US spying. 1. we’re allies and the spying done would be minimal 2. We’re part of five eyes and excempt from most spying activities

China may well claim that Huawei enjoys high reputation in Australia and around the world. Problem is, Huawei aren’t quite perceived that way.

Devices like the Huawei 3G Wifi router might be described as “entirely usable” but In the past, local users of their more expensive networking gear have had plenty of serious bugs to complain about, and without suitable resolution forthcoming. Cisco’s lawsuit against Huawei may have stalled, but it showed pretty clearly some bad behaviour from the Chinese company. Now they’ve annoyed the European Commission…

That’s actually a point, all the concern is over spying done directly from the telco level equipment (ie. DSLAMs, etc), but really those things don’t have any direct access externally and are only internally managed on the telco network.

Actually that’s the point – it is possible to analyse every single bit that leaves a network device. If there are ‘rogue’ bits, you can detect them. If there is encrypted traffic, you can detect it and track it.

Then there’s the reverse engineering that can be done at the hardware level. Now few if any commercial entities will be doing this – it is expensive. But there is no question the US government would be doing this, and I will guarantee that if they discovered back doors or traffic snooping in Huawei equipment they wouldn’t keep quiet about it.

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